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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318563">to face the change</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote'>TheSpaceCoyote</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Attempted Murder, Bottom Armitage Hux, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Dysfunctional Relationships, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Top Kylo Ren, Unhealthy Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:01:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318563</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux learns that there are worse things about the new Supreme Leader than a clumsily repaired helmet.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Villain Kylo Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to face the change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First entry for <a href="https://twitter.com/villainkyloweek">Villain Kylo Week!</a> This covers the prompt "Sith Eyes." Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hux used to believe it couldn’t get any worse.</p><p>Surely, Ren’s cobbled-together excuse for a helmet was the peak of the man’s ghoulish ostentation. The one small victory gleaned from the death of Snoke and the rise of Ren was, Hux had believed, the destruction of that vile mask, and yet after a year of its absence, here it was, again. Patched back into one piece by veins of glowing red that pulsed with sinister lifeblood, staring back at Hux from the head of the Supreme Council’s conference table. </p><p>And Ren had the gall to ask him if it made Hux feel <em>uneasy</em>. As if any rational man wouldn’t be unsettled, or at the very least unimpressed by the return of the Vader-wannabe mask. </p><p>But a rational man would also know when to bite his tongue in order to save his own skin. </p><p>“No, Supreme Leader, not at all. I <em> like </em>it.” </p><p>Hux hears Ren exhale slowly from inside the mask. If he detects the lie, then he considers it beneath him to respond. </p><hr/><p>Hux had believed it couldn’t get any worse, only because he didn’t think that Ren could be <em> hiding </em> something else behind the mask. He’d already seen the boyish face the Supreme Leader resented, the scar inflicted upon him by a girl so far beneath his stature and bloodline, the hair so unruly and brazenly casual Hux’s fingers itched to take scissors to it. </p><p>Ren didn’t take the helmet off during sex anymore. He hardly disrobed at all, merely popping open the fasteners on his pants and shoved his way inside. Hux kept himself prepped in anticipation of Ren’s violent appetites, as he was impatient enough to bypass any foreplay whenever he got Hux cornered and alone. </p><p>Usually, Ren swept in like a storm, fucked Hux senseless, and left as unperturbed and emotionless as ever, almost as if it had never happened. He was no longer a man who let carnal pleasures distract him for very long. But <em> tonight</em>, in the aftermath of yet another Supreme Council meeting Hux wondered why he was even required to attend with his now-meaningless rank, Ren bothers to stay. After pulling out of Hux and letting out a long, hoarse breath through the mask, Ren tilts over to the side and collapses onto the bed, back facing Hux as he comes down from his own negligible orgasm. </p><p>Hux’s legs burn with the phantom pressure of Ren’s hands, a twinge in his spine from the way he’d been folded in half throughout the onslaught. Seed spills out of his twitching hole, dripping onto the rucked sheets. Hux feels filthy, used, a little tired. He needs a sonic, to brush the cling of Ren’s saliva out of his mouth. </p><p>“Supreme Leader,” Hux hisses, propping himself up on an elbow. “<em>Ren</em>,” he tries instead, raising his voice a fraction. </p><p>But Ren remains motionless beside him. Hux hears the soft exhales through the helmet’s vocoder and frowns. Asleep? Sure, the meeting had been dull, and the sex vigorous, but Ren was not one to roll over and knock out after orgasm, at least not lately. Hux moves to touch Ren, shake him awake and remind him the bed is <em> hardly </em> big enough for one standard-sized humanoid, only to second-guess himself. His hand hovers over Ren’s shoulder, long white fingers, stripped of their glove, reflected in the cracked bell of his helmet. </p><p>Once upon a time, Hux knew every inch of that thing—even as he loathed its existence, he accepted it as a part of Ren, and grew to grudgingly enjoy it. </p><p>But not now. Now, it’s been shattered, reforged into something not quite unrecognizable, but so changed as to be unfamiliar, unsettling, ugly. </p><p>Hux pauses, his hand frozen above Ren’s reclined body, suddenly wondering. Is there any part of the man beneath him that resembles the one Hux grew to value. Or has Ren become as warped and broken as the mask he wears to ward off all those who used to know him, no matter what side of the war they resided upon?</p><p>Leaning over Ren’s body, Hux’s fingers stroke along the bends and divots of the mask’s features until they settle upon the servomotors. Taking a deep breath, steeling himself for what he might find, Hux presses down. </p><p>The mechanisms hiss and click quietly. The front of the mask shifts, unlocking. Hux holds his breath, waiting to see if Ren will wake up, but when he doesn’t stir from his sleep Hux continues, carefully lifting the helmet off of Ren’s head. </p><p>Furls of black hair spill over the rumpled pillow like thickened ink. Hux holds the mask aloft, no longer dwelling on how much he hates the thing, but instead focusing only on the surprisingly serene face of the man beneath him. </p><p>Ren looks as he did the last time Hux had seen his face bare, save for a few extra stress lines on his forehead and dark circles beneath his eyes. In sleep, even those have been smoothed and brightened, hints of Ren’s natural, healthy pallor coming through. Right now, he looks less like the brutal, cold Supreme Leader Hux has come to know, and more like the volatile apprentice, the easy to tease young knight Hux remembers when he allows himself to visit his less-tainted memories. </p><p>Hux reaches out, cupping Ren’s face with a shaky palm. Ren’s as still as death, but his lips flush with pink, shine with spit. They’re marked slightly by indents of teeth. Ren always had a habit of gnawing on his lower lip during sex, as he fucked his way to climax. </p><p>Hux leans down. <em> Sweet stars</em>, he’s missed this terribly. Missed these parts of Ren that it seems will remain the same, no matter what happens to him. When Hux presses their lips together, a meager hope sparks in his chest, one that could maybe, if he and Ren worked together, rekindle what they used to have—</p><p>Suddenly, something closes around Hux’s throat. He gasps, struggling to draw in air, but the grip only tightens. With a violent thrust, he’s pushed away from Ren, their kiss breaking as Hux wheezes for breath, scrabbling at the invisible noose drawn around his throat. </p><p>Beneath him, Ren rises from the bed, hand outstretched, features furrowed in anger. But Ren’s rage, the choking hold he has on Hux’s throat—those are not the things that suddenly strike fear into Hux’s heart, that make him realize that it doesn’t matter what he had with Ren, because <em> that </em> Ren is gone for good. </p><p>For the intense, warm eyes that Hux remembers so well, so fondly, have been burnt away, replaced with nothing but orbs of listless, bloodied, <em> rotten </em> yellow. </p><p>Hux chokes on his spit, vision blurring. With his strained breath, he curses Ren, the war, the First Order, but above all, <em> himself</em>. He should have known. He’d been a fool not to.</p><p>No matter what happens—things can <em> always </em> get worse.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I didn't imagine that Hux died at the end of this, just got choked out for a bit. But I guess you can read it however you'd like. </p><p>Hit me up on <a href="http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/">Twitter</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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